Wild Attempts
by kittn
Summary: (Rated "PG" just in case...) The familiar faces of Community General must help MacGyver face his worst enemy yet. (This is a crossover between "Diagnosis Murder" and "MacGyver) Please review!
1. A Painful Day

Author's Note:

I, unfortunately, do not own any of the aforementioned shows or characters from them, but oh how I wish I did.....

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"Dr. Mark Sloan to ER! Dr. Mark Sloan!"

Mark groaned into his coffee. The tinny sound of his name coming out of the speakers put a quick end to the relaxing coffee break he had planned. He hurried out of the doctors' lounge, his coat flapping behind him, to find the reason for the page waiting for him in trauma 1 of Community General Hospital. Dr. Alex Martin met Mark at the elevator and gave him a short explanation of why he had been called. Mark took a quick look at the patient's chart, chuckling slightly as he moved the curtain, which acted as a door, aside.

"Hey, Doc." MacGyver sat shirtless on the exam table, looking a bit sheepish as he held the compress he had been handed over the bleeding bullet wound.

"MacGyver, I told you that all of your traipsing around would get you in trouble some day!" Mark kidded as he removed his patient's hand from his shoulder. "And how did this happen?"

"Well, it's kind of a long story," Mac started, knowing the older doctor would understand.

"With you it's always a long story. I would assume this has something to do with work." Mark began cleaning the wound as MacGyver explained how it got there.

"Sort of. Pete sent me to go pick up a package for Phoenix at the post office, only it turns out that when I got there someone decided to hold up the place….." Mac's voice trailed off, somehow aware that he didn't need to finish the sentence. Mark, knowing his friend, figured out the rest in his mind: MacGyver tried to stop the crook before he could hurt anyone, so he came up with a plan that worked to take down the gunman but got himself injured in the process. Mark's suspicions of MacGyver's success were confirmed when his son, Lt. Steve Sloan, arrived at the door. He knocked slightly on the cart near the curtain, waiting for permission to enter before he came in. He was certainly a commanding presence in the room; at over six feet and well built, he had a tough time finding anywhere to stand in the tiny space without being in the way of his father.

"How's the shoulder?"

"It'll be fine. You got the mug shot?" MacGyver reached over with his free left arm, careful to keep the rest of his body still so Mark could finish stitching his shoulder. "That's the guy."

"I can't believe you stopped him with a stapler. You have to teach me that trick of yours one of these days; it could come in very handy." Steve grinned and looked over at his father, who was now wrapping the other man's shoulder with gauze, grateful that his was not the body being repaired this time.

"I think Steve's right. You owe him a lesson. After all, didn't Community General's favorite patient teach you this trick?" he joked, nodding towards the now-invisible hole in MacGyver's right shoulder. It was an unfortunate but well-known fact that Steve's zeal for his job as a homicide detective for the LAPD often provided him with gunshot wounds and other traumas that landed him in a hospital bed.

"Well, I did get a few pointers from him on how to annoy the nurses," MacGyver responded, carefully easing himself off the examining table. This was a reference to another well-known fact: while Steve was in the hospital, the staff would always have a lousy day!

"Well, this time you won't be needing to annoy any nurses," Mark commented as he scribbled, "but you will need to go to a pharmacy and have this prescription filled today."

"You got it, Doc," Mac said, picking up his t-shirt and jacket. He looked at them for a second, puzzled, then slung the shirt over his damaged right shoulder and across his back, slipping his left arm into the sleeve. He repeated the process with his jacket, ignoring the mild unpleasant sensation of the leather hitting his still-numbed shoulder.

"Come on, Mac. I'll give you a ride to the pharmacy. My day's done anyway; just let me call Cheryl and tell her to book this guy." Steve left the hospital and waited just outside the main doors to make his call.

"Listen, MacGyver, I really don't want you overdoing it with that shoulder. Try to take it easy for the next few days, OK?" Mark looked at his young friend. He knew that, unlike Steve, MacGyver was likely to take care of his injuries.

"I'll see you later, Mark." MacGyver headed for the main entrance of the hospital, where he knew Steve would be waiting. "By the way, what time was that fund raiser at BBQ Bob's?"

Mark was glad for the reminder. He had nearly forgotten that there was a dinner scheduled for that night at the restaurant he co-owned with Steve and another doctor from the hospital, Dr. Jesse Travis. He had only mentioned it in passing a few weeks ago to MacGyver, but when he heard that the funds were to be used to help the pediatric wing of the hospital he bought a ticket on the spot. "It's at 8, but you might want to get there at 7:30. Parking around there can be murder!"

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MacGyver opened the door to his apartment with some effort; it was hard doing everything with his left hand. He looked around the apartment and saw the message light blinking on his answering machine. So he pushed the button. "Hey, Mac, it's Pete." MacGyver groaned; it was his boss, Pete Thorton, whom he had forgotten to call. "When I sent you to pick up that package, I kind of expected you to bring it back to my office. Oh, well, give me a call when you get in. I'll stop over and pick it up." MacGyver groaned as he realized he had lost the package. _At least it was only Pete's mail-order sweater in there,_ he thought thankfully. _It can be replaced. _He lifted the phone and pushed the "talk" button, but that was as far as he got; the next few seconds found him face-down in his couch, someone knocking on the door, and his attacker a mere grinning shadow as he fled the scene.


	2. Guess Who's Back

A/N: Sorry about the delay! My internet connection got messed up.... Anyway, I'll try not to let it happen again! Thanks for the reviews; keep 'em coming!!

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Steve waited several seconds before he knocked again. He saw MacGyver go into his apartment just a few minutes ago, but now it was taking him forever to come back to the door. Steve sighed impatiently; he knew Mac was slow on his feet, but this was ridiculous! With a grin fading from his face, Steve knocked loudly one more time. Now he was starting to worry. He peeked through the window, the curtains revealing no movement in the apartment. Steve checked the pockets of the leather jacket MacGyver had left in his car, the reason he was knocking on the door, and found the extra set of keys he knew Mac had on him that day. Steve had relinquished his house-sitting duties that morning when Mac returned from vacation, giving back his keys. He opened the door and looked around, grateful at first to see nothing wrong. As he walked around the room he heard a slight intake of breath. He turned to see MacGyver still face-down in the couch cushions and just coming to.

"Mac?" Steve inquired, kneeling down next to him.

MacGyver was still trying to clear the cobwebs from his head and lift himself from the floor. "Grmph!" he muttered through the couch cushions after he momentarily forgot his shoulder injury.

Steve helped MacGyver sit up, taking care not to upset his arm or his neck. "Sit still right here. I'll get you some ice for that head." The sounds of drawers and cabinets opening and closing seemed like explosions going off in Mac's head. He was relieved when Steve finally emerged with a rag holding some ice. "What happened?"

"I don't know," he said, carefully applying the ice to the base of his neck. "I came in, checked my messages, and the next thing I know you're walking around in my living room. Did you see anything?"

"No, I didn't," Steve replied glumly as he carefully searched the room, not touching anything to preserve any possible fingerprints. "No one came in through the front. I was out there the whole time. By the way, you left your jacket in my car."

"Yeah, I'm real sorry about that." MacGyver gingerly felt around his injury. "Steve, can you help me get this sling off? I can't get anything done with it on."

Steve let out a low whistle as he obliged. "Looks like you got a pretty good hit! It sent the clasp from this sling pretty deep into your skin."

"Yeah, I kind of got that." MacGyver winced as he reapplied the now dripping rag; the banging around in the kitchen resumed as Steve looked for a bandage. "You know, one injury a day used to be enough for me. I think I _am_ learning too much from you. I seem to have upped my quota!"

"Look at it this way: The metal clasp from the sling probably stopped the stick from doing more damage." Steve held up a hockey stick for Mac's observation, a small crack in the handle the only evidence of its ill-intended use. Steve didn't want to admit it, but for the second time that day he found himself feeling lucky that he wasn't MacGyver. He pushed the thought (and the sarcastic remark, "Well, I'm not the one who's been to the hospital _today_!") to the back of his head with a slight grin, tossing the antibacterial he found in MacGyver's general direction as he went off to the bathroom in search of a very large Band-Aid. He applied it to MacGyver's injury before replacing the sling and leaving him to his much-needed nap.

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A knocking on the door interrupted MacGyver's nap. He sat up with a groan. "I'm coming," he spat out with some venom, muttering "Can't a person get any sleep around here?" as he slowly pushed himself up off the couch and trudged over to the door. "Pete, what are you doing here?"

"MacGyver? You're a mess! When you never came back with that package I kind of wondered where you went. What happened?" Peter Thornton stared in surprise at the rumpled appearance of his friend. He noticed the sling that supported his right arm, then saw the bandage on the back of his neck as Mac turned to let him in.

"Nothing. I'm fine." The answer came in a bit of an irritated tone.

"Well, I figured I'd come over here and give you some warning. Someone down at the Foundation found a guard tied up in a closet, no uniform, no name badge. He said that someone came and attacked him from behind and the next thing he knew he was in the closet, a rag stuffed in his mouth. I went over the security videos; you'll never guess who was on them."

MacGyver flopped down on the couch, his left hand rubbing the back of his neck. "Pete, I really don't feel like playing Twenty Questions. Who was on the tapes?"

"You're not going to like this." Pete paused to make sure he had Mac's attention. "It was Murdoc."

"Murdoc. That explains it!" Mac stood up - very, very slowly - to pace the room, explaining as he went. "After I left the hospital, Steve gave me a ride home." MacGyver ignored the raised eyebrows that accompanied the word "hospital". "Someone was in here waiting for me and knocked me on the back of the head. Steve came back up and scared whoever it was away. Neither one of us saw anyone come in or go out."

"That could be Murdoc, but if it was what are the chances you'd be dead now?" Both men considered the depressing odds momentarily before they both shook their heads, subconsciously clearing away the thought. "By the way, what happened to your arm? Did Murdoc do that, too?"

"No, this was a result of my little field trip to the post office." Mac suddenly pulled a sheepish, apologetic face. "It looks like you're going to need to order a new shirt. Sorry, Pete." Pete opened his mouth, a million questions ready to spill out, but MacGyver's raised hand pre-empted him. "Back to the matter at hand: Murdoc."

"Doesn't this seem a little sloppy for Murdoc? He usually has these elaborate plans that nearly work."

"Well, the last time we saw him, he kinda started getting sloppy. He's probably getting desperate by now, or as close to desperate as he comes. He's tried to get me seven times and hasn't succeeded yet - eight, if this one was him. And he probably would've taken me, too, if Steve didn't come to the door when he did."

"Now who is Steve? The name sounds familiar..."

"Steve Sloan. Remember, the cop? Mark's son?"

"Oh, that's right. But Murdoc has never let an innocent bystander get in the way; that's how he originally came after you, because you were with me. Anyhow, there's always some sort of psychological game to show how he's superior when he attacks you. Where's the superiority in this? This just seems like a wild attack, a shot in the dark."

"You could go a few ways with this one, Pete." MacGyver ticked off the items on his fingers as he spoke. "Superior intellect: he was ready to attack while I was off guard. Superior strength: he could've taken me if Steve hadn't come up when he did. And this could be a mind game; think about it, when we think about Murdoc we think of some elaborate scheme to get to me. We never think of him just coming out and clobbering me on the back of the head. That's too obvious for Murdoc, too simple, but subtle enough given his track record that we'd never suspect it. He got in here and left no trace, no evidence of a break-in or an intruder. Steve checked. Plus he probably thought we'd figure he was dead after we _saw_ him die."

"Mac, how many times have we seen that guy 'die'? Six, seven times?"

"Exactly. And you all thought I was paranoid the last time because I refused to believe that he was really dead. And you know I _still_ don't believe he's dead. This could've been him."

"And if it is, it won't be the last time he tries."

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Steve sat behind his desk, staring at the uncooperative computer screen. He tried running his search again, not wanting to believe what he saw in front of him, but the same results came up again. After speaking with Pete this morning (which MacGyver would hopefully never find out), Steve decided to try to find out what was going on with this Murdoc guy. What he found was not pleasant; anything he turned up pointed toward a serious mental illness and an obsession with MacGyver. The only record the LAPD had of him was seven different violent deaths, none of which ever turned up a body. There were even witnesses to some of these events, but still he came back. Steve just shook his head; this guy was like a cat! He seemed to be running low on lives, but not on tricks. Steve clicked "print" and handed the stack of papers over to Cheryl a few minutes later. "Take a look at this." He watched as her look changed from one of curiosity to total disbelief.

"And we thought _we_ get nowhere. At least we usually know when we're done with a particular suspect; death usually seals that up for us. But this guy just keeps coming back!" Cheryl shuddered involuntarily at the thought of some of the scum they'd put away coming back for revenge. "So, what's your interest in him?"

"You remember MacGyver?" He waited for a nod before he continued. Cheryl smiled; she remembered well the handsome guy from the Phoenix Foundation who helped them more than once on cases. "Well, he had a little run-in at his apartment today and he and his boss from Phoenix thought it looked suspiciously like something Murdoc would try. So I looked the guy up. Compare these files to the stuff that Pete gave me that never made any law enforcement data base and you've got one serious psychopath with a deadly obsession with MacGyver."

"So what? Are you saying this guy's still out there and he's after Mac again?" Cheryl was a bit skeptical. "That seems a little far-fetched, don't you think?"

"Cheryl, look at these files. This one is a time when a deceased Murdoc tried to kill MacGyver. This one's a time when he tried posthumously to kill MacGyver. So is this one and this one and this one. These were the only times I saw someone almost outwit the man. He's sick, and he seems to have a knack for getting Mac in trouble."

Cheryl had been reading one of the files, soon losing interest in what Steve was saying. "So you think this guy is really after Mac again?" Steve nodded grimly. "Well," she said with a sigh, "what do you suggest we do about it?"

"I don't know yet, but I have a bad feeling about this."

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MacGyver opened his eyes slowly. _What is that pounding? _Slowly the realization dawned on him that the sound was someone knocking on the door. He looked at his watch and a new realization hit him: the anesthetic from earlier had worn off on his shoulder. He lowered his arm slowly. _Three in the morning! _Wondering who could be knocking at that time of night, he slowly forced his body off the couch. "Steve! What-?"

MacGyver was cut short by the warning finger Steve placed over his own lips. Steve jerked his head in the direction of the side entrance to the apartment, a more gentle motion urging Mac to follow Steve toward the street. He was surprised to see Steve's car, his partner Cheryl waiting in it. Steve motioned MacGyver into the back seat, closed the door, then returned to the apartment, gun in hand and two uniformed officers in tow.

"What the heck is going on?" he finally managed to ask.

"Pete stopped by the station to see me today. He's had a couple units out here since he left earlier." MacGyver's jaw dropped, his eyes rolling. "It's a good thing he did," Cheryl said with exasperation, her own eyes rolling then returning to the apartment window. "About five minutes ago we saw someone disappear into your apartment through that door, and any minute now Steve or one of the officers should come out with whoever it was in cuffs."

As Cheryl finished her explanation, Steve appeared in the doorway, a hard set to his jaw. He motioned for MacGyver to re-enter the apartment, wincing slightly as he moved his arm. "I think you'd better see this," Steve called out as MacGyver approached. Mac followed Steve through the apartment until he reached the bedroom. There were feathers all over the place, the pillowcases strewn around the floor along with some shreds of blankets.

MacGyver's eyes nearly bugged out of his head. "What happened?" He continued through the bedroom, noting the now-opened window and, a bit belatedly, the small trail of blood working its way down Steve's arm.

"By the time we got in here, the bed already looked like this and he was working on the bathroom." As Steve spoke he opened the bathroom door. "I thought I had cornered him in here, but he was already half way out the window when I got here, and he had this all set up for you."

Both men looked toward the bathroom mirror. "Be ready, MacGyver. Our games have just begun." MacGyver moved in to take a closer look at the medicine cabinet. As he looked one of the uniformed officers approached to dust for prints. "Hold on a second," he said, waving him away. "Steve, look at this." Steve changed places with the officer to look over Mac's shoulder. "Do you see what I see?"

"That depends; do you see a trigger wire?"


	3. A Ticking Good Time

A/N: I'm not too good at MacGyverisms, so please excuse me if the science of my ideas is wrong! I hope they're not so far off that you lose interest.

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MacGyver looked around the room, spotting both officers poking around randomly. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," he warned. "Unless you'd like for all of us to go 'boom'." Both officers abruptly stopped what they were doing and were left idle. They stood nervously switching their weight from foot to foot as MacGyver worked.

MacGyver reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out his Swiss army knife. He then reached into the cabinet under the bathroom sink and pulled out some dental floss and a small jar of extra hold hair gel, the seal still in tact. Steve shot him a bemused look. "Jack likes to keep a spare just about everywhere," Mac offered quickly. He pulled out a length of dental floss, using the gel to make a small, sticky ball at one end. He then unraveled about five feet of the string, cutting it with the knife, and laid the ball on the sink ledge.

He lifted his knife, opening up the blade and examining the trip wire on what he expected to be an explosive device. It seemed simple, really; the small piece of copper wire had been connected to the explosives inside the cabinet, then taped to the side of the mirror with a tiny piece of electrical tape. Once you opened the cabinet, the whole thing would explode. The trick was to get it off the mirror without changing the amount of pressure on it. MacGyver, realizing he only had one free hand, tossed the jar of gel toward Steve. "Rub some of this gel between your thumb and forefinger." Steve made a face at having that stuff on his hands, but a smirking MacGyver hurried him along with one smart remark: "What, like you've never used the stuff before." Steve bucked up and pulled out a good-size glob of the sticky stuff, liberally spreading it on his fingers.

"What do you need me to do with this?" Steve wasn't totally sure what Mac had in mind, but he knew that, to his chagrin, eventually he would be touching the bomb and praying that it wouldn't go off.

"I'm going to pry off the tape here so I can open the door, and I need you to grab the wire and hold it tight. Then I'm going to thread the end through this ball," he explained, holding up the mess of gel and floss, "and I'm going to need you to have a good grip on the wire while I do that." Steve gave a nervous grin as MacGyver asked, "You ready?"

MacGyver took the edge of the blade and slowly pried off the tape as Steve held the end of the copper wire with his sticky hand, trying not to think of the time he was in the hospital when a certain Ms. Sweeney pulled something that was for some reason eerily similar to this. When the wire was finally free, MacGyver carefully removed the tape from the wire and took a peek into the cabinet, left partially open by his dear friend the mad bomber. "Well, it's definitely a bomb," he declared, discovering several pounds of explosives packed into the small cabinet. "Steve, I'm gonna need a little more slack on the end of the wire."

"You want me to move my hand _closer _to the bomb? You've gotta be kidding me!" Steve saw that MacGyver was smiling, but he wasn't kidding. Carefully Steve grabbed the wire with his clean right hand, holding the tension as he slid his sticky left hand down the wire.

"All right, that's far enough," MacGyver said when he had about six inches to work with. "Now I just need you to hold the end out for me." MacGyver carefully threaded the very end of the wire through the hardening ball of goo, then wound a few more inches of wire around the ball, adding more gel little by little as he went. He worked deliberately slowly, letting each layer of gel dry before he added a new one, with the unfortunate added effect of Steve's nervousness increasing. He topped off the dried gel with the piece of electrical tape he had pried off the mirror. He then pulled the free end of the dental floss gently, trying to keep the tension at a level he assumed was about the same as what Steve was keeping on his part of the deal. He tied the floss securely to the towel rack, sealing off the knot with a little more hair gel. Then he went to testing the knot.

"All right, Steve, you can let go now."

Steve asked MacGyver, "Are you sure this is going to work?" Mac just shrugged his shoulders, his left hand quickly flying to his protesting right shoulder. Steve sighed resignedly and let go. All four men were grateful for the silence that followed, but Mac wasn't satisfied yet. "All right, you guys get out of here. I'm gonna take this thing apart."

"Mac, you aren't serious. You're gonna try to disarm this thing with one hand?"

"It'd be easier if I had someone to help me," he replied suggestively, taking the resigned look on Steve's face as an offer for assistance. "All right, this should be relatively simple. There seems to be just three different triggers."

"Three? Three different triggers and you call that simple?"

"That is simple compared to some of the things I've had to disarm before," he reminded Steve, trying to push his own memories of a dangerous cruise ship out of his mind. "Now, let's see, this trigger wire is going to have to wait. We should probably take care of the motion sensor first."

Steve looked at him, now significantly less nervous, curiosity filling his voice. "And how do you plan on doing that?"

"Well, if we take the door off the hinges and move it straight backwards, we won't break the beam so the laser won't sense the motion." _I hope_, he added mentally. "Then, once the door is out of the way, it's just a matter of unhooking the sensor from the explosive and then disabling the timer."

"A timer? And how long do we have to disarm that?"

"I don't know. I can't see it."

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Mark cast a worried glance over the papers he held in front of him. Steve had actually asked for his father's help on this one, but for once Mark felt at a loss. "Well, folks, I think it's time we broke for the night. I can't think straight with the letters jumping up and down on the page like that."

Amanda and Jesse ignored the not-so-subtle hint and kept on staring at the files in front of them. "Good night, Mark," Jesse responded absentmindedly.

Mark chuckled and shook his head. _"This is why I gave them keys,"_ he thought, adding out loud, "Lock up when you leave."

Mark worked his way through the house, locking doors and windows as he went. Steve was still out at MacGyver's house, where Mark knew he would be watching all night, so he didn't bother going downstairs to say good night. Steve had left the case files for Mark, Amanda, and Jesse to review before he left for Mac's, hoping they'd be able to come up with something more than he had. Mark had tried everything he could think of: he put pins in a map where MacGyver had been attacked by Murdoc, he put the places in different orders, he put the methods through all the associations he could come up with - he had tried everything! Something had to be usable as a predicting pattern, but Mark just couldn't see it. He stood in the bathroom, staring at his reflection as he brushed his teeth, seeing not himself but the pinned map in the mirror. As he walked to bed he counted out all the attempted methods of murder, but he couldn't find a pattern. He drifted off to sleep, thoughts of dynamite and long falls haunting his dreams.

Jesse and Amanda continued to study the files as Mark slept. Finally Jesse scrubbed his eyes and took a long look at his watch, not believing the numbers. "My next 12-hour shift starts in about six hours. I already told Mark I wasn't planning on driving home. Do you mind if I sack out on the couch?"

"No, that's fine. I should probably get home. Colin took the boys overnight, but I have my own patients to see tomorrow." Amanda rose and began gathering her things.

"Well, at least _your_ patients don't mind if you yawn in front of them," Jesse joked, filing the paperwork away in a messy pile in a single folder.

"Right, and I'm sure the nurses don't mind your filing system, either," Amanda rebutted, rolling her eyes toward the bulging folder. "Now I see how your apartment could be less appealing than this place."

"Well, maybe if I had someone to help me clean up…"

Amanda held up her hand and stopped Jesse mid-sentence. "Bye bye, Jesse," she said with a smirk on her face, leaving the room before Jesse could give an audible response. Moments later, the sound of Amanda's car starting floated unnoticed towards the ears of the young doctor, already sound asleep on the couch and dreaming of much nicer things than what was going through Mark's subconscious.

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"That's one almost down," MacGyver announced as he passed off the detached cabinet door to the waiting officers' hands. "Now hold that _very_ still." "_As if they need me to tell them,"_ he thought wryly, suppressing a grin as he saw the look of terror on the face of the younger, obviously green officer. He tried to change his expression from amusement to encouragement, but then he realized the effort would have been wasted since the officer - Officer B. Laifer - had his eyes dead set on the bomb and his hands locked in a death grip.

MacGyver turned his full attention back to the task at hand. "Steve, I'm gonna need you to do this for me; it requires the use of both hands." As Steve moved in front of the cabinet, Mac opened up the large blade of his knife. "Now, you see the green wire on the side there?" Steve touched the tip of the knife to the wire indicated. "That's the one. Follow it left until you find the microchip. Careful! Don't lean left, just move your hand!" Steve checked his subconscious lean before he hit the path of the laser. "There you go. Now, pop it out, but you're gonna have to catch it so it doesn't interrupt the beam before it turns off." Steve took in a short breath before performing the task, just barely avoiding setting off the motion detector with his arm.

"That's one down," Steve announced triumphantly. He tossed the chip into a plastic bag from his pocket, then moved toward the frozen Officer Laifer. "You can put that down now, Laifer." Steve had to physically remove the medicine cabinet door from the hands of the young man before he snapped out of it.

"Thank you, Lieutenant."

"Steve, we won't be needing these fine officers any longer, if they need to go report back or something." MacGyver could almost feel the tension in the room ease as Laifer took his leave. The other man, Officer J. Ewing, offered to remain, but Steve suggested he would be more useful keeping an eye on Laifer and escorted him to the front door. "And that's it for the trip wire," Mac declared just moments after Steve returned to the bathroom.

"How did you do that so fast?" Steve asked.

"Practice in 'Nam," MacGyver explained simply. "Now we've got this timer to worry about." He dug under the sink tossed a small box of gauze to Steve, nodding to indicate his arm. "You wanna tell me how that happened?"

Steve turned on the tap and wet some of the cotton pads, cleaning the small nick in his arm as he explained. "He had a blade on him and didn't like to be cornered."

Mac was splitting his attention between Steve and the medicine cabinet. He watched as Steve removed the wet, slightly bloody cloth from his forearm, noting that no new blood appeared. _That's not bad at all, _he thought, tossing a band aid at Steve. He turned his attention back to the timer.

Steve did the same a few moments later and read the small red numbers out loud. "2:52. Do you really think we can disarm this in under three minutes?"

"It looks like we're gonna have to. Let's see…" Mac wandered out of the bathroom, muttering to himself as he went. "Maybe, it could work…" He returned carrying several different magnets. "Gotta love electrical appliances; take a magnet to anything with a computer chip in it and it fries."

"Hopefully it doesn't take us along with it. Will it?" Steve asked. MacGyver shrugged his good shoulder, so Steve sought out some shelter for himself. "I love it when you're so confident," he muttered sarcastically from behind the bathroom door. MacGyver ran a small magnet shaped like a Hershey's kiss over the timer. When it continued counting down, he tried a magnet with a photo of himself and Mike when they began their climb of The Widowmaker. He kept trying the refrigerator magnets, but his supply was limited and apparently they weren't strong enough. 1:38. He finally resorted to pulling out the magnet from his old microscope kit and trying that. The polarized magnet was a little trickier; the first wave using the north end caused the timer to speed up to twice its normal rate. Waving the south end over it did not reverse the effect. MacGyver swallowed nervously, waving the center of the magnet over the timing mechanism. 0:46. A final swipe proved useless, and Mac slapped himself in the forehead. "Of course," he chastised himself as he raised the magnet once again. A touch of the magnet to the small box under the timer produced some effect: the timer blinked 0:34 once, twice, then turned off.

"Of course, the power source of the timer couldn't be in the timer itself. That would make life too easy for us, wouldn't it?"

"It makes death even easier," Steve commented dryly, emerging from his safe spot to check out the amount of explosive material packed into the small space. "I'll call this in, get the bomb squad out here."

"Isn't that what Laifer and Ewing are supposed to be doing?" One look from Steve was all it took for Mac to drop the tension of the past minutes and let out a small chuckle. "Right. I'll go tell Cheryl we're OK. Be careful, though, in case there are any more surprises lying around."

Steve nodded, not really paying as much attention to MacGyver as his cell phone. "Hey, it's me... Yeah, we're fine. Listen, we might have a houseguest tonight. That OK?… Can it wait until I get there? I've got a few loose ends to tie up here before we come back… All right, see you soon. Bye." Steve snapped his phone shut. He looked out to see the bomb squad suiting up and figured he should probably get out of there before he set something off.

MacGyver sat in the back seat of Steve's car, his hand to the back of his aching head. He lowered it when he heard Steve settle in and start the engine. "How's the arm?"

"It's fine," he answered MacGyver. Cheryl's head whipped around and Steve held his arm up for her examination. "It's nothing. Just a small cut. He mostly got my sleeve, anyway." Cheryl nodded, barely satisfied but saving that lecture for another time, and turned her attention back to the activity outside.

"Any idea when I'll be able to get back in my apartment and get some sleep?" His head was really starting to throb again!

Steve shook his head. "No, I don't know when they'll finish. It won't take them less than an hour even if they find nothing, but they can be there for five or six hours if they do find another surprise. You can sleep in the guest room at my dad's place for now."

"Thanks, Steve." MacGyver's head returned to his hand, his elbow resting on his knee. That drummer living in his brain needed to move out soon or he'd go nuts! MacGyver fell asleep and never noticed Cheryl get out of the car or any of the rest of the drive to the beach house. It took Steve's gentle nudging of his knee to get Mac's attention. He let out a groggy moan as his brain processed the fact that he had to get up and actually walk to the house. He hoisted himself out of the seat, Steve respecting his pride and letting Mac keep his independence, and followed Steve with his eyes only half opened in hope of keeping out the bright porch light.

"This must have been some late mail delivery," Steve commented, slightly irritated, as he picked up the errant piece of mail from the floor. "Those deliveries keep getting later and later-" He stopped in mid-sentence, flipping through the contents of the envelope.

"Who sent you the pictures?" MacGyver wondered idly, trying to make conversation.

Steve shook his head a little before responding. "I think it was Murdoc."

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A/N: For those of you who have already read this section, I apologize for the oversight (if you noticed it!) and it has been corrected. Thanks for taking the time to help me out!


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